WEF - Chapter 1
Chapter 1: How Dare You Eat My Flatbread?!
Harsh sunlight poured through the gap in the curtains, which had not been drawn fully shut.
"A swish!" Ning Dali hooked the curtain open with her foot, squinted, and glanced outside from where she lay in bed.
Through the window, she could see a straight, lonely road. It had been built years ago, and its surface was full of potholes and poorly maintained.
Beyond that road, as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but bare earth, mud, and air.
It was so desolate that it seemed every human, animal, and plant had died out.
Ning Dali withdrew her gaze from outside and surveyed the compact RV, considering what to do next.
She had crossed over three days earlier.
Three days before that, she had still been hauling cement at a low-wage construction site in the Federation, struggling to pay off an enormous car loan.
She had fallen asleep and awakened to find herself and her RV surviving in the wilderness together.
This RV was the only asset Ning Dali had accumulated after years of struggle. It had a bed, a kitchen, and a bathroom.
Though she was poor, she had never shortchanged herself. The RV was packed with all sorts of things, everything one might need to eat and drink, to kill, and to stay alive. For the time being, nothing was missing.
Even if something were missing, she was not too worried.
She had gone three days without eating.
It was not that she did not want to eat, nor that she had no food.
Ning Dali turned over on the narrow bed and stared at the dry flatbread beside her pillow.
It had been left there for several days, but even through the plastic bag, the flatbread still gave off a fresh scent of wheat, making her mouth water.
Ning Dali tentatively brought the flatbread to her lips.
[01:24:23]
Ning Dali blinked.
[01:24:22]
The last digit jumped once, changing from 23 to 22 in the blink of an eye.
"An hour, and you're still here."
She gave a dry laugh at the countdown before her eyes and set the flatbread down.
The instant her fingers left it, the countdown vanished from before her eyes.
Today was another day of the countdown and me clinging to life together... Ning Dali grinned at the empty air.
During the three days since she had crossed over, whenever any part of her body touched something edible, a countdown would inexplicably appear before her eyes.
At first, she had not understood the relationship between the countdown and food. It was not until she pushed the food toward her mouth, until the food was only one centimeter from her lips, that the white countdown suddenly turned a vivid red before her eyes.
At the same time, it shook like a person with epilepsy, and as it shook, the lettering enlarged. The visual effect was exaggerated, like a PPT an intern had made with great care.
After a few repetitions, Ning Dali understood.
It did not want her to eat.
This was strange. Stranger still, not eating did not make her hungry.
Not only was she not hungry, she also had ample strength. She had become a perpetual motion machine.
Ning Dali had considered ignoring the countdown and eating something, but it had only a little over an hour left.
She had already waited three days. She could wait out the last stretch, and the flatbread could wait too.
She simply did not know what would happen when the countdown reached zero.
Ning Dali shook her head, resolved to keep the flatbread out of sight and her cravings under control, then covered it with her pillow.
Patter, patter.
The second hand of the alarm clock in the corner crept around, and time slipped away.
Only two seconds later, Ning Dali's hand was itching to reach for the flatbread again.
This time it was not craving. It was boredom.
There was no internet here, and she did not want to waste the RV's power. There was not even a ghost around. Playing with the countdown was her only social life.
It sounded a little bitter, but what could she do? There was nothing here at all. She was going mad with boredom.
Ning Dali stroked the flatbread, changed her position on the bed, and imagined that the countdown was a pet she had raised.
It came when called and went when dismissed, and it even guarded its food.
There was not much difference from a dog. It could serve as a substitute.
As she cultivated a relationship with the countdown, something outside the window caught her eye in the corner of her vision.
"Hmm?"
Ning Dali immediately perked up, abandoning her newly acquired pet without a second thought. She sat up and rubbed her eyes.
A small patch of shadow had appeared on the distant open ground. Nothing surrounded it, and it was obvious at a glance.
Following the shadow upward... Ning Dali saw an open red parachute.
A large square box hung beneath the red parachute.
The whole thing looked a little like an airdrop from some shooting game, except there was no aircraft in sight.
"So this isn't wilderness survival after all. It's battle royale." She muttered, then used her game experience to estimate where the airdrop would land.
It was not far from the RV, three minutes away at a run and ten on foot.
Ning Dali put on her sneakers and set off.
The world outside seemed no different from before. There was not so much as half a person in sight.
She did not go too close, afraid of being crushed by the airdrop.
Her concern was justified.
Less than two minutes later, an orange-red flame appeared abruptly in midair and, with a whoosh, set the parachute ablaze.
Without the parachute, the supply crate fell straight down and struck the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust. At the same time, crimson marker smoke began rising from it.
The rising smoke resembled a signal to charge.
Ning Dali's expression shifted slightly. Even though no one was around, she instinctively reached into her pocket and clenched a small knife.
Just then, she saw a thin hand appear out of thin air beside the supply crate.
The hand reached through the air toward the crate from a distance, and the lid on top instantly flew away. A bulging black plastic bag floated out of the crate and landed in the hand.
The hand seized the bag and vanished from Ning Dali's sight as abruptly as it had appeared.
Someone was here?!
Was that an Ability?!
A long-range heist, this powerful?!
Ning Dali took a deep breath, let go of the useless knife, and without the slightest hesitation spun around. Her long legs pumped as she sprinted toward the RV.
At odds with her movement was the shadow beneath her.
The pitch-black shadow seemed to possess its own awareness. It detached itself from Ning Dali's feet and did not keep pace with her.
When she noticed this, Ning Dali's steps paused for only an instant. The next moment, she ran even faster.
Let the shadow worry about ghosts. Survival came first!
The shadow that had detached from Ning Dali's feet writhed and twisted on the ground, forming a complete human figure.
It walked unhurriedly toward the supply crate.
The supply crate was a 1.2 by 1.2 by 1.2 cube. The shadow bent beside it, rummaged through the box, and pulled out a sealed plastic bag covered in white frost.
It nodded, apparently satisfied, then, holding the bag, fell backward in an elegant motion and soon dissolved into the ground.
When Ning Dali got back into the vehicle, she found that her shadow had returned at some point.
She quickly made a few movements, staring intently at her shadow. It had not changed at all, still as obedient and silent as ever.
It seemed someone had merely borrowed it and used it for a few minutes.
"Another Ability? Could my Countdown be an Ability too?" Ning Dali pondered as she started the RV. Its chassis sat low, and she turned the steering wheel, pulling onto the broken road.
She wanted to put as much distance as possible between herself and this place.
Ning Dali had bought the RV by hauling cement.
Hauling a bag of cement weighing around a hundred pounds up four flights earned four yuan.
She saved four yuan at a time for three years before she could barely scrape together enough for the down payment.
This vehicle was expensive for a cement laborer, but not much of a big deal in the Federation, especially since it was an RV that was nearly overloaded.
Ning Dali floored the accelerator. Listening to the engine roar, she felt herself catch fire, only to glance down and see that the speed had just passed forty kilometers per hour.
"Old thing, show some spirit." She patted the steering wheel and glanced at the red marker smoke in the rearview mirror, her voice slightly choked. "You do not want to be treated like an airdrop and robbed, do you? You do not want someone to blow out your 1,800-yuan tires, do you? You have crossed over too. Try running at seventy or eighty for me, all right?"
The RV could not talk. It simply roared, jolted, and continued to lose range.
After less than ten minutes of running flat out at forty, a second airdrop appeared at the end of her sightline.
"..." Why are these things gathering in bunches?
Luckily, this was an airdrop whose red smoke had already burned out.
The large red parachute was covered in footprints, the supply crate had been torn apart, and several plastic bags lay scattered on the ground.
A dirty off-road vehicle was parked beside the supply crate, with two people in it.
From a distance, Ning Dali stepped on the brakes and opened the storage box beside her.
Inside was a miniature pistol, a gift from a fellow prison mate. She took it out in case she needed it.
Only... Ning Dali stared into the storage box, her gaze narrowing as she noticed something was wrong.
Her gum was gone. Someone had gone through her box.
"Don't move."
Something cold was pressed against her neck.
They were speaking Federation language too?
She did not need to look down. From experience, she knew there was a blade at her neck.
She slowly raised both hands in the universally recognized gesture of surrender, and at the same time glanced at the rearview mirror without making it obvious.
The rearview mirror clearly reflected the woman's appearance.
A woman had gotten onto the vehicle at some unknown moment. She was so thin she was all skin and bones, her pockets bulged with things, she clutched a knife tightly, and her eyes blazed with excitement and greed.
She was chewing something, possibly Ning Dali's gum, or possibly her flatbread.
The flatbread Ning Dali had gone three days without eating, not one bite of it...
Ning Dali's eyes turned cold.
"What is this vehicle's password?" the woman asked viciously.
Ning Dali had modified the RV. Its equipment required a separate password to operate; otherwise, not even the refrigerator door would open.
"8888." Ning Dali made one up offhand.
"Bullshit!" The woman swallowed the gum in her mouth, and the knife in her hand moved threateningly. "The password is six digits."
Six digits? That was the refrigerator's password.
"Do you want to open the refrigerator?" Ning Dali said. "It uses fingerprint unlock."
"Fingerprint?" The woman instinctively turned her head to look at the refrigerator at the back of the RV.
Ning Dali had been waiting for exactly this moment.
She moved in a flash, seized the woman's slender wrist, and squeezed hard. Then, with a flick of her five fingers, the knife was somehow pinched between her own fingers.
"Aah!" The woman's scream was accompanied by the sharp crack of bone breaking.
"Huh?"
Ning Dali had not expected the woman's wrist to be so fragile. She had only used a little force, yet it had snapped. Didn't everyone have an Ability?
But she was surprised only for an instant. Soon she seized the woman's arm and heaved.
The woman was light as anything, and before she could struggle, she was dragged to the seat.
Now the greed and excitement in her eyes were gone, leaving only fear and the pain of her fractured wrist.
She hissed through the pain, trembling as she said, "D-don't, don't kill me. I will give back everything I took."
With the hand still usable, the woman kept pulling things out: the dry flatbread Ning Dali had been loath to eat, from which the woman had already taken three large bites; the milk Ning Dali had been loath to drink, more than half of it gone; and the gum Ning Dali had been loath to chew...
The woman lowered her head and reluctantly pulled a piece of chocolate from the very bottom pocket of her work trousers.
She gripped the chocolate tightly. Her eyelashes trembled rapidly, and a fierce, determined expression flashed across her face as she prepared to activate her Ability.
"Bang!"
Noticing that the woman's movements had slowed, Ning Dali gave her no chance and punched her.
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